


Take a Deep Breath and Let It Out Slowly

by Catsintheattic



Series: SPN Episodes Prompts - Season 1 [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s01e02 Wendigo, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catsintheattic/pseuds/Catsintheattic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody ever believed Stevenson Shaw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Deep Breath and Let It Out Slowly

Stevenson wakes to the tumble of his body around its own axis. The swirling ends when his shoulder smacks into the flagstones of the fireplace. The fire has stopped crackling long ago, but the embers are still gleaming and the stones are still warm. The crash is rough enough to whip the skin off his arm, but he doesn’t notice right away. Nor does he register the hit to his elbow, which will be swollen to the size of a man’s fist when Doctor Powell takes care of him the next morning. The overwhelming sensation that demands all his attention is that of his chest hurting, and when he rolls over on his back and fumbles around to assess the damage, he can feel blood seeping wet and sticky through the gashes in his pajama top. 

He isn’t where he fell asleep any more. Invisible claws have ripped him from the warm cocoon of his sleeping bag like a hungry man would rip a snack from its package, only to cast him away for juicier morsels. And this is when he registers the screams. The thing – the grizzly? – the _thing_ thunders through the cabin, but what reaches his mind are the frantic pleas of his mother. 

“Stevenson? Where are you? Stevie!” 

He is thirteen, almost a man, but he wants to crawl back into his mother’s arms and hide, listen to her voice telling him that all is well. Instead, the last thing he hears is his childhood name before it’s ripped from his mother’s throat and drowned in the wet gurgling of somebody dying. Whoever it is, it can’t be his mother. She has a kind heart even when times are hard, and she would never sound so utterly … _torn_. Just like his father would never sound so _helpless_.

_Was it a bear?_ the ranger asks while the doctor tends to Stevenson’s wounds. _Did you leave food lying around? Could it have smelled fresh meat?_ All Stevenson can do is shake his head. All he remembers is lying on the floor, curled up so tightly on himself that the blood from his chest dried on his knees. All he remembers are limbs that were too long and too thin, that moved like shadows flickering on the wall above the fireplace. He tries to explain, once, twice, and stumbles through the words. 

_It’s shock_ , people say, _a child’s imagination trying to come to terms_. He is placed with his aunt and uncle. His aunt’s voice is bitter like the autumn wind in the mountains, and his uncle’s grip on his shoulder is too tight. _No more_ , they say, _no more of this nonsense._

Stevenson falls silent, tells himself it doesn’t matter. His parents are gone, and nothing he says or doesn’t say will bring them back. 

He never goes hunting again. There’s something evil in those woods.

Life moves on for forty-seven years.

When the two men come and ask him about the accident, he tells them what he’s told everybody. _A grizzly. A huge one._ They shrug away his white-washed story, ask again. 

"Mr. Shaw? What did you see?" 

The eyes of the younger man are kind and Stevenson suspects that if he looked closer, he would see the other’s secret pain and loss. So he tells them about a shadow that moved faster than sight, about a phantom that opened doors to take the lives of everyone he loved. He pushes down the collar of his shirt to show them the scars. They nod. It’s all he’s ever hoped for.

And, though it’s forty-seven years too late, he finally knows what it means to tell the truth and to be seen for who he is.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt taken form Episode 1.02, Wendigo  
>  _Stevenson Shaw: “You wouldn’t believe me. Nobody ever did.”_
> 
> I took a bit of artistic license with Stevenson’s age: in the companion book, he is nine years old. But since his age wasn’t mentioned on the show, I felt free to make him a few years older.
> 
> Thanks to paragraphs and to celta_diabolica for the beta!


End file.
